Civil rights champions have diverse college journeys.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. may be the most recognized civil rights leader in U.S. history, but across many decades, numerous Black activists have changed the world through their efforts to end racial segregation, white supremacy, racial violence, and discrimination in education and employment. They have led campaigns for antilynching legislation, constitutional protections, voting rights and criminal justice reform — and they’ve attended Ivy League institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and state and private schools along the way. Here’s where 15 Black civil rights leaders went to college.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spearheaded the American Civil Rights Movement, changing the course of history through nonviolent protest, powerful speeches and grassroots organizing. Leading mass demonstrations, sit-ins, jail-ins, boycotts and legal action, he helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He also co-founded and served as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. At 35, King became the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the age of 39.
College: Morehouse College in Georgia; Boston University School of Theology in Massachusetts; Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania
U.S. News rank: 95 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges (Morehouse); 41 (tie), National Universities (BU)
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Born into slavery during the Civil War, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an investigative journalist who led an anti-lynching campaign and helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. She also founded the Negro Fellowship League, which housed and aided newly arrived migrants from the South during the Great Migration. She died in 1931 at the age of 68 and in 2020 was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for outstanding reporting on lynching.
Colleges: Rust College in Mississippi; Fisk University in Tennessee
U.S. News rank: 187-204, National Liberal Arts Colleges (Rust); 158 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges (Fisk)
John Lewis
John Lewis served as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, and played a key role in the March on Washington in 1963 and voter registration efforts in the Freedom Summer project in 1964. Along with activist Hosea Williams, Lewis led the landmark 1965 march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, which became known as “Bloody Sunday” after police attacked nonviolent demonstrators. Lewis represented Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020.
College: Fisk University; American Baptist College in Tennessee
U.S. News ranking: 158 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges (Fisk)
Medgar Evers
After serving in World War II, Medgar Evers became involved in antisegregation efforts and served as the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi, organizing high-profile boycotts and playing a pivotal role in efforts to have Black student James Meredith admitted to the University of Mississippi. His assassination in 1963 “prompted (U.S.) President John F. Kennedy to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill,” according to Medgar Evers College–CUNY.
College: Alcorn State University in Mississippi
U.S. News ranking: 51 (tie), Regional Universities South
Bernice King
Bernice King is a peace advocate, author, lawyer and CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change — known as The King Center — and the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Under her leadership, the center launched Students with King, the Beloved Community Leadership Academy, and NV365 Education & Training to teach the King philosophy of nonviolence. She earned her master of divinity and juris doctor degrees at Emory University in Georgia, and established the Be A King Scholarship at Spelman College in Georgia.
Colleges: Spelman; Emory University School of Law
U.S. News rank: 40 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges (Spelman); 24 (tie), National Universities (Emory)
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering civil rights and racial injustice, and creator of The 1619 Project, which was published by “The New York Times” and retells U.S. history using a framework that places slavery, its consequences and ongoing legacy at the forefront. She established the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting.
College: University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill; University of Notre Dame in Indiana
U.S. News ranking: 27 (tie), National Universities (UNC); 18 (tie), National Universities (Notre Dame)
W.E.B. Du Bois
One of the of the most prominent Black intellectuals of his time, W.E.B. Du Bois campaigned against Jim Crow laws and for nationwide antilynching legislation. The first Black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Massachusetts, his birth state, he played a critical role in developing African-American education and was a founding member of the NAACP. Du Bois was also a historian, sociologist and author who published numerous seminal books, including “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903.
College: Fisk; Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany; Harvard
U.S. News ranking: 158 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges (Fisk); 48 (tie), Global Universities (Humboldt); 3 (tie), National Universities (Harvard)
Joseph Lowery
Known as “the dean of the Civil Rights Movement,” Rev. Joseph Lowery co-founded the SCLC with Martin Luther King Jr. and led the organization for two decades. The Alabama native was a prominent leader in nonviolent protests, including the Montgomery bus boycott — which lasted from December 1955 to December 1956 and garnered international attention — and co-founded the Black Leadership Forum, a consortium of advocacy groups.
College: Paine College in Georgia
U.S. News ranking: 187-204, National Liberal Arts Colleges
Jesse Jackson
Rev. Jesse Jackson headed the SCLC’s economic arm, Operation Breadbasket, and helped found the Chicago Freedom Movement. The Greenville, South Carolina native later established Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition — now the Rainbow PUSH Coalition — and served in the U.S. Senate. He ran unsuccessfully for president as a Democrat in 1984 and 1988, only the second Black person to seek the office after New Yorker Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
Colleges: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; Chicago Theological Seminary in Illinois
U.S. News ranking: 231 (tie), National Universities
Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael was a key leader in the Black Power movement. A native of Trinidad, he succeeded John Lewis as leader of the SNCC in 1966 and became honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party in 1968. As a philosophy major at Howard, Carmichael joined the university’s Nonviolent Action Group, affiliated with the SNCC, and was active in civil rights campaigns from the Albany Movement to the New York hospital strikes. In addition to working against segregation in Washington, D.C., he was one of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961.
College: Howard University
U.S. News ranking: 86 (tie), National Universities
Ayo Tometi
Ayo Tometi, formerly Opal Tometi, co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Black Lives Matter global antiracism movement with Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza. The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Tometi launched the BLM social media channels and website, and is former executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. In addition to antiracism, her work focuses on unifying the global Black community.
College: University of Arizona; Arizona State University
U.S. News ranking: 109 (tie), National Universities (Arizona); 121 (tie) National Universities (ASU)
Al Sharpton
A minister and politician, Rev. Al Sharpton is founder and president of the National Action Network, which focuses on voting rights, criminal justice reform, corporate responsibility and youth leadership. He has been involved in nonviolent antiracism activism since his teens. In 1969, Jesse Jackson tapped the Brooklyn native to be youth director of the city’s chapter of Operation Breadbasket. Sharpton ran unsuccessfully for president as a Democrat in 2004.
College: CUNY–Brooklyn College in New York
U.S. News ranking: 39 (tie), Regional Universities North
Derrick Johnson
A lawyer and advocate for health care equity, voting rights and equitable education, Derrick Johnson is national president and CEO of the NAACP. Under his leadership, the NAACP launched the Jamestown to Jamestown Partnership, marking the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans arriving in America, and the 2020 We are Done Dying Campaign, which focused on inequities in the U.S. health care system.
College: Tougaloo College in Mississippi; South Texas College of Law Houston
U.S. News ranking: 187-204, National Liberal Arts Colleges (Tougaloo); 150 (tie), Law School (South Texas)
James Rucker
James Rucker is co-founder and executive director of Color of Change, a racial justice and civil rights advocacy nonprofit, and co-founder of the Citizen Engagement Lab, which focuses on antiracism and progressive political advocacy. Prior to Color Of Change, he was director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org. In 1988, the California native served as photo editor of the “Stanford Daily,” the California university’s independent, student-run newspaper.
College: Stanford University in California
U.S. News ranking: 4, National Universities
Thurgood Marshall
Long before becoming the first Black justice appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall worked as an attorney to end racial segregation in schools and successfully argued the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case before the high court. He led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and in 1967 ascended to the Supreme Court, where he served for 24 years before retiring in 1991.
College: Lincoln University in Pennsylvania; Howard University
U.S. News ranking: 126 (tie), Regional Universities North (Lincoln); 86 (tie), National Universities (Howard)
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Where 15 Black Civil Rights Leaders Went to College originally appeared on usnews.com